The Same Ship Drowned
by Nick.Norma
Summary: Concept story for my band's album. Rennick Xero wakes up to discover he has aged ten years seemingly over night. Desperate to discover what has happened to him, the man begins to search out the only person he has ever loved but can no longer remember...
1. Introduction sea stalker

Introduction

**Introduction**

**I walked on the ocean in those days. In a little hut which sat upon the **deep. Anchors held the building to the sea bed, and living this close to the edge allowed me to pick up all sorts of treasures.

This satisfied my Gold lust at first I guess, but the sea is a mighty hoarder – she does not like to give up her bounty so easily.

Storms would frequently wash my little drift wood hut clean, and there was always the threat of Pirates.

But I kept to what I knew; after all I had never seen land.

And I was never happy.

"_I lost my lover in the great sea."_


	2. The Awakening

ONE

**I**

'**The Awakening'**

**One foggy morning Rennick Xero awoke to discover that he was ten years **olderthan what he had been upon falling asleep. Of course, this was not a usual occurrence for Rennick; yet here he was looking into the cobweb thick mirror which resided on his oak bedside cabinet.

In the looking glass Rennick saw a shattered version of himself. Over night (or so it seemed) he had acquired wrinkling around the eyes and his once well groomed hair and beard had betrayed and stabbed his usually tidy appearance in the back. To be perfectly honest Rennick thought he had the look of a man who had spent way too much time on an Island pretending to be a Mountain.

With great effort the man tumbled out of his bed and onto a dusty unkempt floor. It was a floor he was sure he had personally cleaned not twelve hours before.

Another strange thing that had taken upon itself to turn up at the door of his life was Rennick's surprising lack of memory towards the past events in his life that had lead up to his current predicament.

The only thing he knew for certain was that it had been the man in the suit that had done this to him. The man in the suit had visited the night before, sat in the chair opposite his blue stained couch and talked to him about his company's business philosophy, what it meant to Rennick and eventually investing in it. What precisely the philosophy had been, Rennick could no longer recall.

What he did remember was this: the man had been named Friedrick, he was unnaturally large and once he had acquired Rennick's signature in red lettering on the contract he had provided, everything had gone black and Rennick had woken up to this morning perplexing events.

(end)


	3. The Love Letters

TWO

**II**

'**The Letters'**

**Her name was Jessica and according to the thirty or so letters that I had **just discovered stained and yellow lying underneath the mail slot in my apartment door, I loved her.

Although I could not recall ever knowing or loving her, the guilt of not replying to any of her mail in "ten years" combined with the strange spark I felt in my heart at the mention of her name was enough to convince me that what this girl had said was true.

'My dearest Rennick,' one of the letters began, 'I am so excited to see you finally next week! O' how we shall marvel together at this amazing world!'

The girl was brilliant! Her letters demonstrated her amazing wit, the acceptance she had for me, her love, and her wisdom. I began to feel in me a passion I had never felt (or that I could remember feeling) before. A rose had begun to bloom in my heart, pumping sweet nectar through my veins and around my body.

It was her last letter however that commanded my brains attention. The inking in front of me made me feel like vomiting the nectar – like emotion from my heart, and it read as if some sad little angel had blown her brass horn in my temperamental ears.

'My dearest Rennick,

You have chosen to discontinue our relationship it seems. Is it because perhaps you are afraid my love? Don't you know that I will never reject you? Your protests will never fall on deaf ears – I promise this to you.

However, as you are no longer replying to my voice I am content to stay in the apartment I have found within your city of post-modernism until you decide to come back.

Always and forever yours,

Jessica'

It was in reading this that I realised why I had been revived from my coma. I had been gone for ten years, I may as well have been dead and buried. But there was breath still in this body of mine and it was there for one purpose and one purpose only. That I decided was love.

(end)


	4. The Search

THREE

**III**

'**The Search'**

**The city is empty. A dark cloud, thick like a demonic entity lies over its **towering roof tops yet there is no rain- merely the feeling of rain and a revitalising rain that could bring death as an act of creation.

The air is thick with heat, but it is not a pointed heat, the heat that seeps from the concrete streets and building is a dull numbing heat. Everything has the feel of a man waiting on the edge of a beach for his ship to come in. Strangely enough for such a large city it holds itself in a dream like state. Most people are asleep indoors; there are a few stragglers that pass by not noticing each other in their search for meaning.

Rennick Xero, a man with a newly served purpose stands outside his apartment building on the tattered and dirtied 'welcome' mat looking out into what seems a gigantic task and wonders 'Is this the same ship drowned?'

He pushes the thought to the back of his mind; he has a mission to complete. He must find a woman whose face he has never seen and he must find her based solely on the spark that echoes through the concave recesses of his heart. An arduous task surely. He takes his first hesitant step forwards and is hit by the heat. It laps at his face like an over-friendly dog and he begins to loose all depth - perception.

The man's first instinct is to turn and run back into his apartment, jump under his blankets and go back to sleep, such is the terrifying nature of the unknown. But her name stands like a silent sentinel in his mind urging him onwards to discover something that he is afraid he has felt before yet never _truly _felt.

He moves like a ghost out and left down the street, towards what he deduces to be the city centre. It begins to rain. A drop here, a drop there pitter patters upon the dried membrane skin that covers his skull. The rain is refreshing but there is hardly enough of it to make him feel like the sponge that he yearns to be. Rennick wipes the rain across his face, but he does not feel pure only slightly cleaner.

He gets the sudden urge to turn down an alleyway and follows that impulse. It is here that he encounters her shadow.

She is dressed in white, a long flowing garment that flaps gently although there is no breeze. Her hair is long and blonde; it curls slightly near the end. Her skin is warm, but she faces away from him.

"Jessica?" he enquires but her beautiful form is swallowed up by the shadows. Rennick runs into their inky darkness his desire to find her now stronger than ever. He hears footsteps tapataptapping on iron railing above his head. Looking up the lost man sees her feet head towards the roof of the building.

He quickly locates the ladder and without any concern for his personal safety begins to ascend.  
(end)


	5. The Confrontation

FOUR

**IV**

'**The Confrontation'**

**Rennick pulled himself up the last rung of the rusted ladder and onto the **rooftops. Expecting to see the girl he had been chasing standing in front of him, her arms wide open to welcome him home, he was surprised at what scene did in fact greet him.

The man in the suit stood not three feet away from Rennick smiling. He was surrounded by several more men in suits and all of them wore the same condescending smile upon their faces as the one who Rennick knew to be Friedrick.

"Hello Rennick." Friedrick spoke with such conviction underlining his voice that Rennick felt ashamed that he was not in a suit like the men in front of him,

"Remember me?" Friedrick asked and Rennick could only nod to show that indeed he did.

"Good." The suited man replied, "We did not expect you to be awoken so soon if it all Rennick, you have caused quite a stir inside our organisation."

"Who do you work for?" Rennick said his first words in ten years.

"We work for many, a prince, an ideal, freedom - you."

"You put me to sleep and I lost her!" the man in the suit laughed at this through his nose as if he was laughing at a small child.

"She is no good for you Rennick. It had to be done. It was for the greater good!"

Rennick felt himself get hot with anger. He clenched his fists and ran at Friedrick.

"You bastards made me loose everything!" he hit Friedrick in the jaw creating not the CRACK he had expected. Instead the suit ensued a singeing tear from deep within his bones. Blood droplets fell from his face and to the concrete roof. Freidrick's skin fell away, starting at his head and peeling open like a banana until it lay on the rooftop in a bloodied pulp.

Rising from the gore came something more horrible than Rennick could have even dreamed during those ten years. It ascended and towered above him on spindly black legs, clicking vicariously. Before Rennick stood a gigantic cockroach, its pincers snapped back and forth over its mouth menacingly and its black buggy eyes glared at the man with such an intense hatred that Rennick urinated his pants with fear.

Quickly the other suited "gentlemen" followed their leader by shedding their skin and a scene that not too long ago had seemed frightening enough to Rennick seemed now impossibly deadly.

'Your decadence bought you to this place Rennick, and now we must keep you here!' Friedrick declared anger lapping off his voice in waves of vomit.

Rennick let the fear gain his attention finally and in an instant of not thinking he turned, ran and leapt off the building, hurtling his body towards the ground below.

As he fell over the ledge he heard the monstrous sound of the cockroaches defecating upon each other almost as a celebration for what would quite probably be his unintentional suicide.

(end)


	6. The Grub

FIVE

**V**

'**The Grub'**

**As Rennick fell towards the city streets a strange thing happened. **Something he had never seen before – a man, faceless to him walked out onto the street below and stood directly where Rennick would soon land. Rennick wanted to warn the man but found the wind rushing at his face stopped him from pronouncing his words correctly.

He landed on the man with a sickening crunch, probably killing him instantly. Whether it was instant or not the man had definitely died. The blood that spread like a mold on old bread over Rennick's shirt was enough proof of that.

Recovering from his daze Rennick stood and turned to look at the man who had stopped his fall. A strange thing happened upon looking in the man's dead eyes. Rennick saw an otherworldly place. He was looking through the man's eyes down into what he could only deduce to be an apartment below him, or at least the bathroom of the apartment.

If the room was a square, this is how the furniture in it would be laid out:

Pushed sideways up against the top side of the square was an old Victorian style bath tub. It was currently empty. It was made from white porcelain which over the years had become yellow.

Directly below him was a small toilet and across from the toilet was an old cracked basin. There was a mirror above it, also cracked.

The floor was lined with a hideous green carpet.

A door opened and the woman entered. She was dressed in a mini skirt that to Rennick resembled a belt more than an article of clothing. She wore a tight tank top and her hair was bleached blonde and tied back. She wore a flour coloured foundation thickly on her face, which gave her the look of a pale ghost, her lips where a bright shade of red and her eyes dark with liner.

The woman had a bottle of Champaign in her right hand and a crystal glass in her left. She walked over to the bath tub and turned the taps on. Immediately brown murky water poured into the thing, she put in the plug and turned away from it. She then poured herself a glass of Champaign sat it down by the tub and took a swig from the bottle.  
She undressed herself quickly and Rennick could not help but stare and the human being who was obviously more plastic than person. The woman climbed into the bath tub and became half submerged in the muddy water. The grimy liquid in the bath seemed to give her some satisfaction as she let out a long sigh and closed her eyes.

Then a sob.

Rennick observed the lady had begun to cry, also something else was beginning to occur. Her body was suddenly gaining a lot of weight. She was slowly bloating up before his very eyes. Her cheeks began to droop and her chins became multiple.

Suddenly the lady's eyes opened in shock horror. She looked around her and saw that she was bloating. Panic, he could see, flew through her mind like some ancient falcon and she began trying to scramble out of the bathtub. By now her body was too large to escape from the tub; she had moulded her self in it and stuck herself so tightly that only her chubby arms could move. She was waving them like a mad person, which Rennick supposed she probably was.  
Another thing he noticed about the stranger was that her peroxide blonde hair was falling out in clumps. The hair landed in the brown mess of water and overflowed with it out of the tub as she continued to grow in size.  
A loud crack of china alerted both him and her to the fact that the bathtub was no longer able to contain her massive form. Chips of porcelain were sent flying from large cracks until the entire tub collapsed into small pieces under her weight and she gave a cry of pain as hundreds of little Porcelain shards undoubtedly found their mark in the flesh of her back and rump.  
She now lay on the floor in a mixture of blood, muddy water, dead hair and the ghastly carpet. Her arms became swallowed by the fat that was pulsing out from her chest and stomach and she vomited in protest of loosing them. Now her legs were becoming dissolved in her stomach as well.

Rennick watched the woman become the fattest of Grubs until she no longer resembled who she once had been. Her legs had given way to a large tail with a big black stinger on the end of it. Her eyes had become blood red as if thousands of vessels had broken behind them. Fangs protruded from her mouth that she snapped back and forth and gurgled in anguish at her quandary.

And then with all her/its might she/it lifted her/its tail and stung her/its neck through with the big black barb.

(end)


	7. The Return

VI

**VI**

'**The Return'**

**Rennick stumbled back from the body in shock. Was what he had seen…?**

'She became who she truly was Rennick.' Friedrick the giant cockroach was hovering in front of him just above the ground, 'she lived a life of decadence much like you and ultimately it consumed her.'

'Is that what will happen to me?' Rennick asked the obvious question on his mind.

'That is dependant.'

'On what?'

'On whether you stay awake or let us put you back to sleep.' Friedrick moved closer.

'Was she asleep or awake?' Rennick took a step back.

'She was guilty' Friedrick replied and leapt of Rennick. The man struggled with the bug, punching at its exoskeleton until Friedrick moved off him and he ran. As he ran he heard the insect hiss cacophonously:

'Your guilt will consume you Xero!' however he continued to run until he reached his apartment building.

Rennick climbed the deserted stairs to his floor and locked himself behind the door of his room.

The first move Rennick made was to head towards his bathroom. Although the place slightly scared him after his participation in the Grub Lady's demise, he still had to wash the blood from his hands before his mind would clear from its guilt and he could decide what to do next.

Turning on the cold silver tap, Rennick could feel his mind beginning to shake. An old love song was playing like a badly scratched record inside his head.

_O' Baby, O' Baby, O' Baby I love you Baby…_

He ignored it and placed his hands under the flow of ice cold water and began to rinse his hands. The basin filled with a pinkish red colour but his fists just seemed to cling to the blood of Rennicks' unsuspecting victim.

He had a sudden flash or vision of a man being crowned king by some invisible hands. He blinked and grabbed a metal scrubbing brush.

Pushing hard Rennick began to try scrape the blood from his skin, but to no success, all he achieved was tearing at his palms until his own blood became merged with the strangers.

He began to cry as the weight of everything fell on him. The angst Rennick felt was ridiculous, but it was still there. And no matter how hard he tried, the damnable blood would not leave!

Again another vision danced before his grey eyes, taunting his mind and pulling at the already fraying threads of his sense of reason and logic. Lying in his hands where four iron nails, but only briefly – then they were gone.

Rennick screamed in anguish. Not only was the crimson not coming off but now it was overflowing from the basin and onto the floor.

'Dammit to hell!' he hissed through his teeth and chucked the brush to the ground.

Rennick left the bathroom and walked into the lounge. Silence seemed to echo here and there was almost the hint of a malevolent presence hiding behind his blue couch.

'I killed them…' he wept at the thought.

'The woman… she… those fangs!'

He looked around and gasped suddenly: seeping down from the corners of the room, gushed the womans' vital fluids; it dripped to the floor were it mixed with a thick mud that was being exhumed from underneath the carpet.

'Oh my God this lounge shows my sin!' Rennicks' mind collapsed under the strain. He ran to the walls and began to pummel against them convinced that behind their innocent exterior lay skulls.

He began to tear the wallpaper away from the buildings' frame. His finger nails snapped and he screamed. His hair had begun to fall into the mixture on the floor now as well. Again Rennick wondered:

'Is this the same ship drowned?'

Multitudes upon multitudes of visions began to assault the man and he knew he had to escape the apartment. Xero ran to his window and looked out it. People were walking by unconcerned by his screams. Some even seemed to encourage them! In a desperate attempt, Rennick plunged his arm through the glass and began to tear it away.

He pulled his arm back and stuck his head out through the hole.

'Abandon ship!' he yelled to the people but they either did not hear his cries or did not care for them.

'Where is a bucket?' in a moment he began to bail the blood/water from his ship and out the window. The problem arose that it was hitting passers by and they too began to sleep for ten years! A few would never even wake up.

'Jessica.' Rennick retreated back into the lounge and fell onto the ground to sit as the flood rose all around him.

'Where are you Jessica? You said you would always be here!' he spoke to her but not to her.

'I want you back! Where the hell are you?'

And then, his mind retreated to darkness.


	8. The End

VII

**VII**

'**The End'**

**Rennick now lay face down in the mess. All around him, shattered **remainders of his apartment floated by in the gory mess. The wall paper had been torn away to reveal the structure behind it was composed entirely of tightly compacted corpses. Rennick gave a loud moan and rose from the foul concoction flooding his home. His face was painted with the bad smelling gore and he swore he used to think it felt like home.

The blood and the mud continued to flow into his room from nowhere until it was waste deep. Rennick shuddered only to realise his spasms signalled that he was crying. It was as if he had been drowning for two thousand years and only now was he starting to realise what muck he had been bathing in his whole life.

He was lonely – so, so lonely and amidst the waves of self pity he felt, one name stood out.

'Jessica.' He whispered, falling to his knees which left only his head above the tide.

'Jessica… Why did you leave me?' he couldn't explain it, but Rennick knew that if she was here everything would be okay.

'Jessica I'm sorry I fell into sleep!' he screamed at the top of his lungs, 'I'm awake now, please come back!' he raised his hands through his dirty hair and then up into the air like he was being held at gunpoint.

'Please…' he whimpered before totally giving up hope. The man waded over to his coffee table which was afloat and clambered onto it before shutting his eyes in defeat and readying himself for his imminent drowning.

Rennick screamed in anguish. He was so loud that he did not hear the polite little knock at his door. So consumed with hurt he did not hear it the second time either, but on the third it was as if the knock had risen him from his grave.

He rolled off the table and moved over to the door. Afraid yet desperate, Rennick Xero took the rusted handle and opened the door.

Like a dam breaking open, the awful concoction that had been drowning him emptied from his apartment and drained down the hall. The person that stood in the doorway however remained untouched by the mess.

Jessica, the girl he had been chasing stood before him. She glowed somehow, her radiance hit him hard and he fell to his knees crying. Exactly as he had pictured her, the girl now stood there clothed in her white dress. Her long blonde hair which curled slightly at the end fell across her shoulders like a golden waterfall and her eyes although a deep green displayed all the colours of the rainbow. She smiled at him; a single tear fell from her eye. She held her hand out to help him up.

Rennick took it graciously and she hugged him tightly.

'I never left you my love.' She whispered in his ear, 'I was just waiting for you to welcome me home.'

'I do…' Rennick sobbed, 'I welcome you home!' she gave a warm laugh.

'Then I welcome you home as well my love.'

As the two hugged each other the darkness that had surrounded Rennick dissipated. His apartment began to look clean and tidy again and his heart felt fulfilled. Although outside the city did not change, the dark cloud that covered it remained, one more light came on amidst the apartments in his city. One more had turned on and slowly but surely the city was being illuminated and welcoming back the light.

(end)


	9. Epilogue

Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**I'm nothing but a lump of clay, dissolving in the salt. You'll find nothing **below but a few gems and lumps of Gold, which sink intangible under the weight of what matters.

'I am God' the sailor declares as he steps foot into territory inclined to his own bereavement.

Drowning under the realization that out here my body means nothing, I ride on luck, and brittle craftsmanship.

This sail, this black flag does nothing to hide my pride from her graceful waves.

"_The wrath of God is like an Ocean to a child."_


End file.
